“Oh, that would be nice, a little party!” Lauretta clapped her hands. “Only, I beg you: wait until tomorrow, when I’ve had time to rest, and shake out a pretty dress, and maybe put a curl into this poor old dyed hair!”

They laughed together, hands in hands. “Very well,” Sarah said, “but do go downstairs and relieve their curiosity!” She kissed Lauretta’s cheek and left her.

Sarah picked at the sealing wax with both thumbnails as she descended the stairs and went into the office, closing its door behind her in order to read her letter in privacy. It was a short one, written in haste; but when she finished it, she ached with longing for the actual presence of her beloved Roman.

He had written in part, and this she read again to herself:

I must tell you a particular dream I had. Do you believe dreams? I don’t, unless they tell me something I want to believe. Well, Sarah! In this dream Leon appeared. Not as I had known him, but young and smiling and happy as I never saw him. Still, I knew who he was. He was laughing. He called me by my name in an easy—I might even say—affectionate way; and he said, “Tell Sarah I love her.” Now, is that not odd and interesting? Considering my age—forty, you know!—it may be strange of me to say it, but for the first time in my life I felt that I had a father. I must seal this and give it to your sister, for she is ready to leave. I know you will be good to her, because she needs you. I love you always, my Beauty!

Roman

Sarah sat with the letter in her lap for a little while, until sounds of the household began to reach her, and consciousness of obligations beyond this room reminded her to get up and go out, show herself and say sensible things. Tomorrow or the day after they would begin picking cotton and taking it into Highboro to be ginned.

Suddenly, as if she could hear it, she imagined the flinging of shovelfuls of earth into the crevices around the coffin in the grave of Roscoe Elk. Roscoe was dead, but his son and grandson lived on, and were strong. Well, so was she; and Beulah Land had never been more beautiful than it was now in the fullness of its ripening harvest. She must go and find Floyd, wherever he was in the barns or fields, and read him that part of Roman’s letter telling of Leon and the dream.

As she left the office, the sound of Lauretta’s voice from the porch made her pause and listen. Lauretta was making an adventure of her escape from Philadelphia. Sarah went to the open doorway, but without showing herself.